Newborn child killed with plastic bag – mother sentenced

A 37-year-old woman from Salzburg was sentenced to imprisonment of 15 months on probation after having killed her baby after birth.

On the morning of 6th April 2012 the woman gave birth to a boy in a toilet of a hotel in Pongau (Salzburg) where she had been working as a maid.

She then put the baby in two plastic bags and hid the bundle in the changing rooms. An hour after the birth, her colleagues discovered blood stains. They called the ambulance who took the woman to hospital. The doctors noticed that the woman had recently given birth to a child.

The search for the baby ended only at 8 pm when the woman revealed where she had hidden the baby. The child could only be recovered dead. An autopsy showed that the baby had suffocated.

Defender Oskar Weiss said his client had already had mental problems before giving birth.

The birth had become an unbearable psychological burden for the woman. A neuropsychiatric expertise revealed that at the time of the crime the woman had been suffering from a combined personality disorder.

That explains the mild penalty for premeditated murder. The crime is usually penalized with 1 to 5 years of imprisonment. The woman was instructed to attend therapy treatment once a week and provide the Regional Court of Salzburg with evidence of doing so.

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